Tag: David Frenkel

Russian political prisoner Yuli Boyarshinov, a “suspect” in the FSB frame-up known as the Network case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, lookng like a human being amidst the combined armed guard of regular police and riot police at Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court this past Friday. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Telegram channel Angry Defender (Zlaya Zashchitnitsa)

Reporters Kicked Out of Dzerzhinsky District CourtZaks.ru
October 19, 2018

Reporters and people who have come to support the accused have been kicked out of Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court, where Network case suspect Igor Shishkin’s custody extension hearing is currently underway. Court bailiffs have explained the decision was dictated by the court’s shortened working day, our correspondent reports.

Today, the Dzerzhinsky District Court has already held two custody extension hearings involving suspects in the Network case. Viktor Filinkov and Yuli Boyarshinov were again remanded in custody until January 22, 2019. The hearings took place in closed chambers. Only reporters and relatives of the suspects were allowed to go up to the floor in the courthouse where the courtroom is located. Court bailiffs forced the men’s supporters to stay on the first floor.

When Mr. Boyarshinov was led away after hearing the court’s ruling, friends and activists who had come to support him sang a song by the group Truckdrivers on the first floor of the courthouse.

We don’t want freedom in handcuffs.
We want crystal-clear truth.
You can ask for it on the barricades
Or trust in law and order.

Angered by the supporters’ behavior, the bailiffs detained activist Yevgenia Kulakova and took her to their office to write her up for violating Article 17.3 of the Administrative Offenses Code (failure to obey a judge or court bailiff’s for maintaining order in the court). However, civil rights activist Dinar Idrisov came to the young woman’s aid, and the bailiffs let her off after issuing a warning.

Later, the bailiffs ordered everyone to exit the building, even the relatives of Network case suspect Igor Shishkin, who could have been called as witnesses. According to the bailiffs, the court was open only until 4:45 p.m. today. It is a common practice in Petersburg courts to kick out members of the public and reporters.

Viktor Filinkov, Yuli Boyarshinov, Igor Shiskin, and eight residents of Penza have been accused of involvement in a “terrorist community” that was, allegedly, planning to carry out terrorist attacks and overthrow the Russian state. Several of the accused have claimed they were tortured into incriminating themselves and their fellow suspects.

Translated by the Russian Reader

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What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”

Spread the word about the Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.

Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find printable posters and flyers you can download. You can also read more about the case there.

If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandise, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You can find the addresses of the prisoners here.

Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.

Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.

If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.

If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.

It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.

Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are examined by actual judges, the Russian government will again be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

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If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other recent cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and disseminate recent articles the Russian Reader has posted on these subjects.

Today [September 9], I was detained at a protest rally for the first time. I had lucked out at previous demos. The protest rally was against the pension reform, and it took place at Lenin Square [in Petersburg]. The event had been authorized by the authorities, but by a happy coincidence, a pipe near the square had burst a couple of days before the rally. Who knows whether it burst under its own power in such a timely fashion or not.

Whatever the case, it would have been a waste not take advantage of it, and so the entire square was cordoned off. The rally on the square was thus still authorized, but it was now impossible to hold it on the square. Antinomy is the modus operandi of the current Russian regime. What is permitted is impossible, and vice versa.

As I rode the escalator up from the subway, I met a colleague from my previous, academic life, Georgy Chernavin. We stood for a while and had a nice chat.

I was one of the first protesters detained, since I was made up like a dead man and holding a placard that read, “Life is hard, but happily it’s short.” That is a title of a song by the band Communism, by the way, but the title is also a quotation, attributed to Varlam Shalamov and Yuri Nikolayev. Basically, the quotation is communist. It belongs to everyone.

Communism, “Life Is Hard, but Happily It’s Short”

I did not see the rest of the rally. There were a total of seventeen people in the first group of detainees, including one dead man (ho-ho-ho). We were put on a large articulated bus. It was spacious inside.

In the paddy wagon, a forgettable looking Center “E” or NKVD officer was in our faces the whole time filming us with a video camera. It was hard to say what secret service he was from. The police could not tell us who he was, and the forgettable looking guy pretended he was not there. When we spoke to him directly, he kept on filming us.

There was also a rather burly major, who never did tell us his name. We later learned from our administrative offense reports that his surname was Golodnyi [“Hungry”].

We cruised around town for a long time. Finally, we were delivered to Dybenko Street. First, the women and children who had been detained were left at one police precinct, and then six of us were taken to another precinct. The rest of the detainees were taken somewhere else, but I don’t know anything about them.

Our group included three young men from the Navalny Team, an older dude carrying a “Putin, resign!” placard, and an elderly man who had lost his telephone and glasses at the rally.

At the police precinct, we hung out in the hallway the whole time. The police told us that we had not been arrested, as it were, but at the same time they would not let us go.

Antinomy is the modus operandi of the current Russian regime.

Varya Mikhaylova came to the precinct bearing care packages for vegans. At first, the police did not want to take any of the things she had brought for us, arguing we were not locked up in cells. She chewed them out, and they threatened to charge her with disobeying police officers, but finally and suddenly they took all the packages she had brought.

It was a really joyous moment. Everyone wanted to join the Party of the Dead. The old dude drank Agusha fruit puree, saying it was “Agusha from the next life.”

Max Stropov and his fellow detainees. The young man on the right holds a placard that reads, “Putin, resign!” Photo courtesy of Max Stropov’s Facebook page

We had hung out in the hallway for around three hours when the police set about writing us up for our alleged offenses. Everyone’s arrest report was worded exactly the same. It was apparently a boilerplate arrest report issued by police brass. In particular, there was a bit claiming the crowd had yelled, “Putin, skis, Magadan,” as if the boilerplate report had been drafted back in 2012.

The police threatened to keep me at the precinct until my court hearing, because I would not sign a paper obliging me to appear in court at ten in morning, but then I signed it, noting in writing I had done it “under threat of continued detention.” In fact, I had read the form is innocuous and does not oblige anyone to do anything.

The court hearing is tomorrow. The Nevsky District Court is located on Olga Bergholz Street.

Translated by the Russian Reader. According to Mediazona, more than five hundred protesters were detained by police at yesterday’s anti-pension reform rally in Petersburg. At the link, above, you will find a stunning photo reportage of the showdown between protesters and police, produced by my friend the photographer David Frenkel.

UPDATE. Petersburg news website Fontanka.ru, which can often believed when it comes to these things because it is published and edited by former cops, reports that 603 protesters were detained by police the during anti-pension reform protest rally in the vicinity of the Finland Station and Lenin Square in Petersburg yesterday afternoon. Today, many or all of these protesters will be tried in the city’s district courts for their alleged administrative offenses. The calls for help coming over social media from members of the Aid for Detainees Group suggest that many of these people will have no legal representation, neither lawyers nor so-called social defenders, so they will have to fend for themselves. In any case, whether they get the book thrown at them or not will most likely have already been decided elsewhere.

David Frenkel, a Mediazona correspondent, has informed us that bailiffs at Petersburg’s Dzerzhinsky District Court have cited him for violating Article 17.3 of the Administrative Code (“failure to comply with the orders of a judge or court bailiff”).

Frenkel attended the custody extension hearing of Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case suspect Viktor Filinkov. Journalists and the public were not admitted to the courtroom during the hearing and the judge’s ruling. When the hearing was over, and Filinkov was escorted from the courtroom, the public, around forty people, applauded him.

It was then that court clerk Yelena Krasotkina, outraged the public supported the prisoner, ordered the bailiffs to detain Frenkel, who at the time was standing in the corridor and not applauding.

Yekaterina Kosarevskya, a member of the Petersburg Public Monitoring Commission, said she heard Krasotkina say to the bailiffs, “Write somebody up for something.”

One of the bailiffs suggested detaining Frenkel. Ten minutes later, another bailiff threatened to detain Kosarevskaya.

When the bailiffs detained Frenkel, they broke his glasses. They claimed he screamed.

The bailiffs cited him Frenkel for violating Adminstrative Code Article 17.3 Part 2 (“Failure to obey the lawful request of a court bailiff for establishing order in the court and stopping actions violating court rules”).

Frenkel sent a photo of the citation to his Mediazona colleagues: he was unable to read it, since a bailiff, surnamed Vikulov, had broken his glasses. The citation claimed Frenkel “made noise, clapped, shouted, and urged the crowd to take illegal actions.”

Frenkel was then taken to the 78th Police Precinct. The policemen swore when they found out why Frenkel had been brought to the police station. He was released after approximately fifteen minutes.

Viktor Filinkov’s term in remand prison was extended four months, until October 22, 2018.

When Frenkel was escorted from the corridor, it transpired the bailiffs had run out of blank arrest sheets.

Around forty people had gathered before the hearing in the second-floor corridor of the courthouse. They included the parents of Yuli Boyarshinov, another suspect in the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, whose remand to police custody was extended later in the day. No member of the public was able to attend the hearing. Before escorting Filinkov from the holding cell, the guards and bailiffs ordered the public to go down to the first floor. They claimed their request had to do with “safely escorting” their prisoner.

The members of the public were reluctant to leave the second floor. Court clerk Yelena Krasotkina emerged from the office of the Dzerzhinsky District Court’s presiding judge. Krasotkina announced the decision to hold both hearings in closed chambers had been made earlier and ordered the public to leave the courthouse.

David Frenkel (@merr1k): “I get the sense the brass has taken the Dzerzhinsky District Court to task, and so they are avoiding the use of force. They are swearing and getting mad, but they’re putting up with us. 11: 12 a.m., July 19, 2018.”

The bailiffs placed a bench at the entrance of the corridor to courtroom, forbidding members of the public from going around the bench. Krasotkina reprimanded the bailiffs, complaining , “They’re all still here,” meaning the members of the public. Armed guards in masks escorted Filinkov into the courtroom as this was happening.

Inside the Dzerzhinsky District Court, June 19, 2018. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Mediazona

Members of the public and the bailiffs argued with each other. A man who was possibly in charge of the armed guard joined them. He warned the public they would not be admitted to the courtroom to hear the judge’s ruling in the cases of Filinkov and Boyarshinov.

“How is that?” asked a member of the public.

“Well, if the judge permits it, the public gets in. If the judge doesn’t, they don’t,” replied the man.

“How do we find that out?” asked perplexed members of the public.

“When the hearing is over, they’ll come out and tell you,” he concluded.

Krasotkina periodically emerged from the presiding judge’s office, taking a photograph of the members of the public on one such occasion.

Filinkov’s defense counsel, Vitaly Cherkasov, a lawyer with the Agora International Human Rights Group, then emerged from the courtroom, telling the crowd the defense had asked the judge to transfer Filinkov to house arrest.

Finally, after the court had rendered its ruling, Frenkel was detained by the bailiffs.

Armed guards escort Viktor Filinkov at the Dzerzhinsky District Court. Photo by David Frenkel. Courtesy of Mediazona

This was not the first time a member of the press has been cited for violating Article 17.3 at the Dzerzhinsky District Court. On March 22, 2018, bailiff Ivan Lozovsky cited journalist Sasha Bogino for violating the administrative law. He ordered her to stop “live streaming,” although the Mediazona correspondent was sitting in the courtroom with her laptop open and not filming anything. In late May, a court ordered Bogino to pay a fine of 500 rubles.

Filinkov and Boyarshinov have been in police custody since January of this year. On June 18, 2018, the Dzherzhinsky District court extended the term in custody of the third Petersburg suspect in the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case, Igor Shishkin. Another six young men are in police custody in Penza as suspects in the same case.

According to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB), the members of the alleged “terrorist community” known as “The Network” had planned “to stir up the popular masses in order to destabilize the political circumstances” in Russia on the eve of March’s presidential election and the 2018 FIFA World Cup, which is currently underway. In addition, on June 15, 2018, it transpired that three new charges had been added to the case.

Three of the suspects, who have been charged with violating Article 205.4 of the Russian Criminal Code (“involvement in a terrorist community”), Viktor Filinkov, Ilya Shakursky, and Dmitry Pchelintsev, have claimed they were tortured into confessing after they were detained by FSB field officers. In addition, Alexei Poltavets, an acquaintance of the suspects, has claimed he was tortured into testifying against them.

The Russian Investigative Committee has so far refused to refuse to file abuse of authority charges against any FSB officers. In the case of Ilya Kapustin, who was tortured during his interrogation by the FSB as a witness, the Investigative Committee decided Kapustin’s taser burns were “consistent with injuries caused by skin diseases or insect bites.”

The suspects’ loved ones have formed a Parents Network. In April 2018, the group held a press conference in Moscow.

Translated by the Russian Reader

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What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify that your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”

Spread the word about The Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.

Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find downloadable, printable posters and flyers. You can also read more about the case there.

If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandize, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You canfind the addresses of the prisoners here.

Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed out and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.

Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.

If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.

If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.

It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.

Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are reviewed, the Russian government will be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

***************

If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and repost the recent articles the Russian Reader has translated and published on these subjects.

There were more people, and their voices were louder. But I still left feeling as if I had been hit with a shovel, which was no surprise.

This time round, the court bailiffs immediately herded everyone down to the first floor, but they were unable to drive anyone completely out of the courthouse.

People stood near the stairway.

Our way down the long corridor was blocked by three beefy bailiffs, who were the centerpiece of a genuine commedia dell’arte.

At first, they used a bench to block the way into the corridor. Folks sat down on the bench. Then they decided to remove the bench. One young woman, however, refused to get up, and the three muscleheads threatened to drag her forcibly from the bench. They left the bench where it was, but turned it around. I managed to squeeze through and sit down on it.

Folks were pushing from one side, as during rush hour in the subway, while on the other side an amphitheater opened up. Knights in bulletproof vests outfitted with tons of pockets stood in this amphitheater. They were nearly motionless, like the best sitters during life drawing classes at the Academy of Arts.

I tried to make a stupid joke that snuggling up against young women like that, not letting them walk down the corridor, was the only joy in their dull jobs. A tall, thin bailiff (I had sketched him at the previous hearing) kept running back and forth, trying to cuddle up to T., pushing his more broad-shouldered colleague away from her.

The broad-shouldered bailiff, who bore a resemblance to Ramzan Kadyrov, smiled reservedly when I joked, while the other bailiff (I memorized his name: Anton) went so far as to say it was not their choice to wear the bulletproof vests, but they were under orders to wear them. He kept pulling at the neck of his t-shirt, as if he wanted to tear off his entie sweaty get-up.

But my jokes and attempts to see something human about them collapsed when all of them went after reporter David Frenkel, elbowing their way through the crowd. We tried to squeeze past them, but they had the right to employ violence. I sensed the tension in their elbows. But if someone like me had tensed their elbows like that, they would have been charged with “disobeying” officers of the law. It was scary.

Amid the stuffiness of the corridor, a ball consisting of the swearing gorillas and skinny David rolled down the stairway. (It transpired later the brave young men broke David’s glasses.)

The crowd seethed with despair and resentment.

“Look at yourselves! How you behave! You are violating the right of citizens to exercise their right to . . . ,” a female court clerk in a blue dress kept repeating at us.

“I have every grounds!”

The bits of bureaucratese clawed at each other. Words stumbled and snapped, turning into feckless curses.

“What grounds do you have for kicking us out?”

“I have every grounds!”

“Who the heck are you?”

“I’m the locum!”

“Whose locum? What’s your name?”

“I’ve already told you everything!”

This had all happened somewhere before, either in a story by Kafka or during my schooldays.

Ultimately, I really resent the fact I cannot draw Viktor or Yuli Boyarshinov or the lively crowd, constantly in motion, but am forced to draw the faces of the bailiffs, frozen in the stupid frenzy of their work. Violence is such a habitual part of their work they have ceased noticing it.

I would rather not have the opportunity to draw them. I would rather this hearing had not taken place. I would like to have magical powers and make it all go away. I would snap my fingers and, instead of a court bailiff, a marvelous violinist would be standing there or a waste recycling engineer who was a feminist and vegan to boot.

But, alas, the bailiffs pushed us back by another ten centimeters, and Ninja Turtles in balaclavas escorted Viktor into the courtroom. Our only magical powers were yelling and clapping as loudly as we could.

Like last time, I could not take it anymore. I left before the hearing was over. Where can I find the strength to endure this?

What can you do to support the Penza and Petersburg antifascists and anarchists tortured and imprisoned by the FSB?

Donate money to the Anarchist Black Cross via PayPal (abc-msk@riseup.net). Make sure to specify that your donation is earmarked for “Rupression.”

Spread the word about The Network Case aka the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case. You can find more information about the case and in-depth articles translated into English on this website (see below), rupression.com, and openDemocracyRussia.

Organize solidarity events where you live to raise money and publicize the plight of the tortured Penza and Petersburg antifascists. Go to the website It’s Going Down to find downloadable, printable posters and flyers. You can also read more about the case there.

If you have the time and means to design, produce, and sell solidarity merchandize, please write to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters and postcards to the prisoners. Letters and postcards must be written in Russian or translated into Russian. You canfind the addresses of the prisoners here.

Design a solidarity postcard that can be printed out and used by others to send messages of support to the prisoners. Send your ideas to rupression@protonmail.com.

Write letters of support to the prisoners’ loved ones via rupression@protonmail.com.

Translate the articles and information at rupression.com and this website into languages other than Russian and English, and publish your translations on social media and your own websites and blogs.

If you know someone famous, ask them to record a solidarity video, write an op-ed piece for a mainstream newspaper or write letters to the prisoners.

If you know someone who is a print, internet, TV or radio journalist, encourage them to write an article or broadcast a report about the case. Write to rupression@protonmail.com or the email listed on this website, and we will be happy to arrange interviews and provide additional information.

It is extremely important this case break into the mainstream media both in Russia and abroad. Despite their apparent brashness, the FSB and their ilk do not like publicity. The more publicity the case receives, the safer our comrades will be in remand prison from violence at the hands of prison stooges and torture at the hands of the FSB, and the more likely the Russian authorities will be to drop the case altogether or release the defendants for time served if the case ever does go to trial.

Why? Because the case is a complete frame-up, based on testimony obtained under torture and mental duress. When the complaints filed by the accused reach the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and are reviewed, the Russian government will be forced to pay heavy fines for its cruel mockery of justice.

***************

If you have not been following the Penza-Petersburg “terrorism” case and other cases involving frame-ups, torture, and violent intimidation by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) and other arms of the Russian police state, read and repost the recent articles the Russian Reader has translated and published on these subjects.

An unauthorized [sic] rally of Alexei Navalny’s supporters in Petersburg turned out to be an unexpectedly serious, well-attended event. Most supporters of the unregistered candidate for the Russian presidency had expected the rally to be poorly attended. A few days before the rally, workers were replacing gravel on the Field of Mars, the announced venue for the rally. On Palace Square, a massive motorcycle rally, featuring the pro-regime motorcycle club Night Wolves, drew hundreds of bikers.

Motorcycle rally on Palace Square, October 7, 2017

In addition, on October 7, an “event whose purpose [was] to inform people about society’s complicated attitude towards the homeless, orphans, and HIV-infected people” had been authorized for the Field of Mars. A few days earlier, on October 3, police had confiscated stickers promoting the rally at Navalny’s campaign office in Petersburg and detained local campaign coordinator Polina Kostyleva.

Most of all, however, activists were amused to hear announcements, broadcast through a loudspeaker, inviting people to a free screening of the patriotic blockbuster Crimea at the nearby Rodina cinema. The oppositionists greeted the announcements with laughter.

Navalny supporter holding the Russian flag and sporting a humorous “Navalny 2018” t-shirt on the Field of Mars in Petersburg, October 7, 2017.

Navalny supporters and anti-Putin protesters milling about on the Field of Mars, Petersburg, October 7, 2017.

At 6:15 p.m., the people gathered on the Field of Mars chanted “Putin is a thief,” “Navalny,” “Freedom,” and even “Happy birthday!,” as the protest was timed to coincide wwith President Putin’s sixty-fifth birthday. On the Field of Mars itself, the protesters encountered no resistance from the numerous police officers on hand. They merely asked photographers to climb down from the walls of the memorial surrounding the eternal flame. Seemingly spontaneously, the crowd headed in the direction of Pestel Street. When the column of marchers spread out, it was obvious that no fewer than two or three thousand people were involved in the unauthorized [sic] march.

Otherwise, it would be hard to explain how the rally attendees easily managed to stop traffic on Pestel and, subsequently, on Liteiny Avenue, one of the main thoroughfares in downtown Petersburg. The marchers chanted, “Down with the tsar!,” “Free Navalny!,” “We are the power here!,” “This is our city!,” and even “St. Isaac’s Cathedral is a museum!” An Interior Ministry press release would later claim that 1,800 protesters made it to Liteiny Avenue.

Protesters abandoning the Field of Mars, where on June 12, 2017, around a thousand of their comrades were arrested for standing in place.

Police commenced to detain people roughly only at the intersection with Nekrasov Street. Police officers formed up in a line. Among the detaineed were well-known former political prisoner Ildar Dadin and photo journalist David Frenkel. Marina Bukina, an activist with the Detainees Support Group, was struck on the head by police. It has been reported that she suffered a concussion and had to have stitches. She was taken to St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. Polina Kostyleva, Navalny’s campaign manager in Petersburg, was once again detained by police. Georgy Alrubov, an employee of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation, reported his own arrest on Twitter. A number of bloggers have reported that Alrubov arrived on the Field of Mars only after most of the other protesters had left.

Police forming a line on Liteiny Avenue

Reporter David Frenkel during his arrest by police. He was later released from the paddy wagon.

Nevertheless, the police line on Liteiny was unable to shut down the protest march completely. Activists bypassed the roadblock by taking side streets and regrouped on Insurrection Square on the plaza near the entrance to the Galereya shopping center. Several hundred people made it there. At approximately 8:05 p.m., announcements were made inside the shopping center that it was closing immediately due to “technical difficulties.” A mob of shoppers flooded out of the shopping center and mixed with the protesters.

Protesters, press, and police confront each other on Ligovsky Avenue, outside the Galereya shopping center and Moscow Station. Petersburg, October 7, 2017

Maxim Reznik, an MP in the city’s Legislative Assembly, was on hand for the rally.

“I gather that people headed spontaneously from the Field of Mars to Insurrection Square. This is the main problem, in fact. The regime itself has done everything it can to let the situation get out of control. Since they don’t allow people to assemble and arrest the organizers, people will take to the streets where they will,” the MP told Activatica.

Reznik personally witnessed the most serious incident outside Galereya. An unknown provocateur threw a beer bottle at a police officer. Subsequently, a fight broke out between people in civilian clothing. Protesters suggested the provocation was incited by plainclothes policemen. [That is certainly how it appeared on Radio Svoboda’s live stream coverage of the event—TRR.]

Around 10 p.m, a group of protesters decided to assemble again, this time on Palace Square, where the concert portion of the motorcycle rally had wrapped up. Around a hundred people came to the square. There was a discussion on certain Telegram channels whether they should spend the night there.

At least forty people were detained during the protests in Petersburg. Two workers in Navalny’s Petersburg campaign office who were detained at the protest have been fined 40,000 rubles each [approx. 585 euros].

Interfax reports that a woman who lived on Kolokolnaya Street, in downtown Petersburg, died waiting for an ambulance due to the fact that Navalny supporters partially blocked traffic on several central streets. [In a post published yesterday on Facebook, reporter David Frenkel explained why this report sounds implausible—TRR.]

Protester holds photo of President Putin aloft outside Galereya shopping center. In Russian tradition, the black ribbon indicates the person in the picture has just died.

Alexei Navalny’s supporters held rallies in eighty Russian cities on October 7. Navalny himself was arrested in early October and sentenced to twenty days in jail for urging people to attending an unauthorized [sic] rally and meeting in Nizhny Novgorod.

On February 23, female feminists spoke out—finally!—in defense of men.

The Eternal Flame, Field of Mars, Petersburg

“We think the very idea of ‘defenders’ is one of the pillars of oppression, whether ethnic, gender or whatever other kind. From the time they are babies, men are inculcated with the notion that they must be defenders. Actually, however, they are merely taught to behave aggressively and completely suppress their emotions. And they grow up as people prone to exercise violence and control. They become cogs used by those in power, dogs who have been taught a single command: ‘attack.’

“We believe society must change, that a more humane society is a sign of progress. Armies and armed conflicts must become things of the past, like human sacrifice and the bonfires of the Inquisition. Like the first winged chimeras, which had been built but still could not fly.”

I read in the news what happened to me today [Sunday]. I was surprised by a lot of what I read and decided to write my own account.

I had been taking pictures of an unauthorized LGBT march in support of social and labor protests on Nevsky Prospect. The march ended in the Catherine Garden. After it was over, some of the activists, who had folded up their banners and placards, and the journalists crossed the street to Malaya Sadovaya, where the National Liberation Movement (NOD) were holding a rally. The NODites and activists got into a war of words, and I pulled out my my camera. In particular, I photographed a colorful NODite in a fur hat who immediately hit my camera before kicking me several times (One of the blows was captured on Arseniy Vesnin’s video). The NODites also shouted that I was a “little Yid.”

The NODites often insult other people and let their fists and feet do the talking (the most striking example was the attack on Arseniy Vesin himself), and I asked the policemen standing nearby whether they could do something about the assailant. They refused to register my complaint, and so I called for a police patrol to come to the scene. They arrived very quickly, but they refused either to detain the assailant or even check his papers. Instead, they checked my papers. After I asked them repeatedly, they finally gave me a pen and paper so I could file a complaint.

When I had finished writing the complaint, it transpired the NODite had already escaped. I was told I could go to the police precinct [to file the complaint] whenever I liked. I stepped away to discuss with Arseniy whether it was worth going to the precinct right then. The police came over to me and said one of the female NODites had filed a complaint against me for attempting to disrupt their authorized rally. The police took me to the 78th precinct, on Chekhov Street.

At the station, the police almost immediately drew up papers stating I had been delivered to the precinct, and then I went to give testimony about my own complaint. Initially, everything was cool, only they kept asking me questions about the LGBT rally. How had I found out about it? How had I met with them? Where had been going?

I refused to answer these questions. The police responded by asking me whether I was in my right mind. Then the deputy commander of the precinct showed up. First, he demanded I turned off my phone (I refused), and then he came down hard on me, saying I was not a journalist, that I could not prove I worked for Kommersant. (I really did not have my ID on me, but I had contacted the editors, and I knew they had telephoned the precinct and confirmed my testimony.)

The deputy commander kept “poking” me, saying I had no respect for the authorities, elders, and the police. I agreed with this, reminding that my assailant had not been detained. When our argument turned more emotional, he threatened to call an ambulance brigade to check my mental competence. Then he left.

The police finished taking my testimony and left me to wait, god knows for what. The whole time Varya Mikhailova and my dad were at the front desk. They were told I had not been detained, but delivered to the police station, and that I would be released any minute now. Arseniy Vesnin, who had testified that the NODite had assaulted me and had tried to give his video to the police, was also at the station.

For a while, nothing happened. Then suddenly an ambulance brigade showed up. They immediately grabbed my papers from the table. When I protested, they told me to move to another chair. I had been sitting right under the surveillance camera and for my own safety I didn’t want to move to another chair, which I told them. So they tried to move me by force. When I resisted, the doctor attempted to strangle me, and two orderlies twisted my fingers and tried to tie my hands with a tourniquet. Yet they could not manage to move me to another chair. I stayed where I was. They also tried to confiscate my camera bag, which I held onto with my elbows. I said they would take it away from me over my dead body.

“No problem,” they replied.

The whole time I was shouting and calling for help, but the police were laughing and filming the incident on video.

Meanwhile, the orderlies whispered in my ear that they would “fuck [me] up” and “kick [me] in the balls.” Just like the NODites, the medics made fun of the fact I was Jewish. They asked me something about the “Christmas seder” (?) and made several jokes about circumcision.

As I learned later, the deputy precinct commander was chatting with my father while this was going in. The policeman was trying to persuade Dad I was a “difficult boy.” He asked him something about fights, alcohol, and drugs. He said I was behaving inappropriately: I was, allegedly, sitting hunched up and constantly making phone calls. The doctor later told my father that I had not been taken away to the insane asylum only because he, my father, had turned up at the precinct.

After half an hour of “conversing” with the medics, the sense of which I still have not figured out, I was untied and released from the precinct. The misdemeanor charges filed against me by the female NODite were dropped.

At the trauma bay, the bruises on my neck and arms, and the scrapes and scratches on my fingers were photographed and registered.

Such is the work of a journalist. I’ll post the report from the march a bit later.